A fret is a thin strip of material placed across the fingerboard of instruments such as the lute, guitar, balalaika, banjo, and various Indian and Arab instruments which provides the position for stopping the strings. Initially, frets were made from pieces of cat gut that were tied tightly around the neck of the instruments at an appropriate position. For modern instruments frets are narrow strips of metal affixed to a fingerboard. On European instruments the frets are generally arranged so as to give a succession of semitones.
Modern frets generally comprise T-shaped members which have small retaining barbs on the stem of the "T". The frets are hammered or otherwise forceably wedged into slots in the wooden fretboard where they are retained by the barbs. For this reason, frets have traditionally been made from a reasonably malleable metal such as a copper, zinc and nickel alloy referred to as German or nickel silver so that the frets will be sufficiently resilient to be hammered or otherwise wedged into the receiving slots. While such relatively soft metal fret wire has been desirable due to ease of insertion in the receiving slots, the softness of the frets results in rapid fret wear from the vibrating strings of the instrument, and it is not uncommon to find that traditional soft metal frets must be replaced as often as once or twice a year on instruments which are used by professional musicians. Attempts to form traditional T-shaped fret wire from more durable metals such as steel which would provide extended life following installation, have resulted in frets which are extremely difficult to install without extensive damage to the fingerboard.
In recent years, fretted instruments and instrument fingerboards have been constructed from various resinous materials such as hand-laid composites or molded thermoplastic materials, and the use of traditional frets with such instruments has been less than satisfactory due to the fact that a thermoplastic fingerboard is not sufficiently resilient to enable insertion of traditional T-shaped frets. Attempts to mold frets as part of the fingerboard in less expensive, non-professional instruments have been made, but since the frets are easily abraded by the string action when metal strings are employed this method is not satisfactory.
Accordingly, it has been a desideratum to provide a fret or fretboard which would overcome the described disadvantages.